Aside from geographic proximity, there hasn't been much to link Charlton Athletic and Millwall this season.

Millwall have been internally stable with a broadly settled squad overseen by the same manager who has been in charge at the Den for the last three years in Neil Harris. He'll become the longest-serving manager in the Championship when Mick McCarthy leaves Ipswich.

Charlton, on the other hand, are owned by the most unpopular man in south-east London. Their takeover has been close to going through for a good chunk of the season.

They sold their best player in January, still have no chief executive after Katrien Meire left in December and Karl Robinson departed for Oxford United a few weeks ago.

But through accident or design, one thing the two clubs do have in common is a late season run to duck into the playoffs at just the right time.

"If the play-offs are no longer just a dream it is a lot of hard work that has got us there. But I tell the players I want more."

Millwall aren't an especially complicated team: not a long-ball side, but they are effective. Against Forest they had only a shade over a third of possession, but were perfectly happy for Aitor Karanka's side to pass sideways around 30 yards out for much of the game, then surge forwards when the need took them.

They also start fast: Shaun Williams headed home against Forest after 27 seconds, the third time in four games they had scored in the first minute. "We wanted to get after Forest today," Harris said. "I am not surprised by the number of early goals, we train with that intensity all the time."

Read More

It took them 27 minutes to get things underway at Ipswich, who came back strong in the second half, but not strong enough to kill off the Lions. One the hour mark, George Saville grabbed the equaliser and it ended 2-2. Ben Marshall got the assist for Jake Cooper's opener. The full-back has now been involved in three goals in three games.

Who knows whether they can keep up that intensity for the remaining seven games, but one thing is for sure: nobody will want to face Millwall in the playoffs, should they get there.

In theory it shouldn't be such a surprise that Charlton are challenging. They have flitted around the playoff places for most of the season but a dreadful run just before the turn of the year seemed to suggest their chance was fading. When Robinson left they were ninth, five places away from the top six having won only one in eight.

Read More

But in the subsequent three games, Charlton have scored nine goals, conceded one and picked up the maximum nine points. Under caretaker manager Lee Bowyer, they have been a team rejuvenated. Previously inconsistent to an infuriating degree now seemingly freer.

Only those inside the dressing room will tell you for sure but Robinson's increasingly outward gloom about his own and the club's situation of late may well have translated to the players.

Bowyer is in charge "until told otherwise", but this is one of those rare occasions when uncertainty could help the atmosphere in the dressing room. His presence seems to have relaxed the team and his own status may have forced them to actually adopt the old cliché of treating each match as an individual event, devoid of context.

"It's only been three games that I've been in charge and we've got another seven to go," said Bowyer on Monday after Charlton's 3-1 win over fellow top-six hopefuls Rotherham, as reported by London News Online.

"I've said to them there's no reason why we can't win all of them. If you perform the way they have in the three games I've been in charge, there's no reason why they can't win the next seven.

"We deserved the three points. I said to them I'm proud of you. They're a different animal now. Everyone knew that they could play but teams were trying to bully us."

Read More

If nothing else, Millwall and Charlton have proved that success does not come with a formula. You can do all the 'right' things and the 'wrong' things and still come away with what you were aiming for.

The last few weeks of the season will be seat of the pants stuff for both teams, and they will know that the momentum they have built up can be halted in a second. But it will be more than worth keeping an eye on this particular corner of south-east London, on two clubs separated by five miles and a whole lot of logic.

Talking points from the Football League this weekend

Too late for Brentford?

A fine win thanks to a Neal Maupay goal at Bristol City has put them within five points of the playoffs, but with six games remaining and four teams to overcome, it looks a tall order. Dean Smith isn't giving up, though.

"Other teams above us have dropped points," he said. "All we can do is keep winning and see where it takes us."

Read More

A typical weekend in the life of a QPR fan. On Friday they lost to a Reading side who have been struggling so much this season they had to change their manager, then on Monday they beat Norwich 4-1.

But it did provide hope for some consistency in the future: 19-year-old playmaker Eberechi Eze scored his second goal for the club against Norwich, and while you might struggle to call Eze a youth product of the club (he joined from Millwall two years ago) he is a highly promising young player of the sort they have been trying to bring through. One to keep an eye on.

Read More

All over for Barnet? Probably. Rehiring Martin Allen was a last shot in the dark, a late swing at survival, but while Friday's 2-1 win over Crewe might have given them hope, Monday's 4-1 loss to Stevenage stamped that out pretty quickly. Five games to go, five points shy of safety and other teams around them have games in hand. Miracles required in north London.